This deal is defensive for Twitter, say all the sources we’ve spoken with over the last couple of months. They simply couldn’t allow UberMedia to have so much market share in this space. The company has acquired UberTwitter, EchoFon and a number of other Twitter-related startups. Adding TweetDeck to the UberMedia stable of products would give them too much leverage over Twitter, say our sources, and so Twitter made a strong defensive bid to disrupt the deal. Which succeeded nicely, apparently.

What this means for the Tweetdeck app, the official Twitter app, and UberMedia's continued plans to sweep up competing clients is unclear. Could we see an Tweetdeck/Twitter for iPhone hybrid? Both kept separately? One abandoned completely to go all in on the other?

Twitter buys Tweetdeck, what does this mean for iPhone apps?

They won't have two completlely different apps. Some of Tweetdeck's features may be added to the official (Tweetie) version to create a Pro version, but Tweetdeck as it exists now will die. Personally, I don't care since I don't like either of them.

As long as they don't start messing with the desktop client, I don't care. But I've been using the desktop client for 2 years and I'm very happy with it on both pc and Mac, and will be "sorely vexed" if they destroy it the way the do the iPhone clients!

Well, I agree and disagree with regarding the desktop client. You may be used to the desktop client, but the fact is that it's not very well designed. It really doesn't fit in either Mac or PC design elements. It really does need a redesign to fit the aesthetics of the platform it runs on. I mean really, menus and submenus to access tweet actions?
That being said, the Twitter desktop client for the Mac is pretty terrible as well but at least it "looks" like a Mac app. It's pretty clear that the Twitter design team needs help in the GUI/usability department. I am not holding my breath that they will bring the necessary polish to future versions of the desktop that are so badly needed.

Could be that Tweetdeck will become some sort of premium version since it also has a desktop app. Or Twitter just wants to have an official desktop app, in which case it will hopefully be improved as I found the Tweetdeck desktop too slow and clunky to be useful. That said, as long as they don't buy and "improve" Echofon or HootSuite I don't care.

I will support Tweetbot and the developers at Tapbot and gladly pay for premium services. They make the best looking apps with great GUI. I have confidence that they will continue to put tons of developing energy into Tweetbot, improving on an already great 1.0. I am standing by them.
Tweetdeck is full of amazing features though and just the multiple post makes it a great app. I haven't used the iPhone app in a while, but the desktop is nice. It does need to be redesigned in my opinion.
Only time will tell what Twitter does with Tweetdeck.

I dislike this deal, unless they just let tweedeck to co-live along side the offical app. I think that could be possible, many manufacturers have different lines of product, they dont have to call everything twitter brand...maybe just tweetdeck powered by twitter. I was really enjoying the new iphone version, multi twitter accounts, Fb, foursquare, all in one consolidated time line = awesome!